Elected to the White House, will Donald Trump escape a sentence in the affair of hidden payments to porn star Stormy Daniels? A judge, who was to rule Tuesday on the legality of his criminal conviction, postponed his decision until November 19 in the face of “exceptional circumstances”.
New York Judge Juan Merchan was due to issue his written decision on Tuesday on a defense request to cancel the entire procedure, after the Federal Supreme Court in Washington considerably extended presidential immunity on July 1.
The appeal was filed before Trump’s re-election on November 5, on the grounds that evidence used by the prosecution relates to official acts during the Republican’s first term in the White House (2017-2021).
According to email exchanges made public by the court, the defense also requested a freezing of the proceedings and the final classification of the case
to take into account the Republican’s election to the White House.
Justice recognizes that these are exceptional circumstances
conceded prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, in an email on Sunday.
The judge postponed his decision until November 19 at the earliest.
Donald Trump intends to get rid of this file by returning to the White House.
Et even if [le juge] Merchan pronounces sentence
as planned on November 26, his execution, whether prison, house arrest, community service or a fine, will have to wait until appeals are exhausted and Trump is no longer in office
in 2029, wrote former prosecutor Randall Eliason on his blog.
Indicted in four criminal investigations, including one before federal justice in Washington for his allegedly illicit attempts to invalidate the results of the 2020 election, the Republican has succeeded for months in delaying the proceedings. His re-election now almost completely clears his judicial horizon.
According to several American media, special prosecutor Jack Smith, who investigated the case on the November 2020 election, and the Department of Justice have initiated discussions with a view to stopping federal prosecutions, which Donald Trump could bury a time at the White House on January 20, 2025.
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Stephanie Clifford, known by her pornographic actress name, Stormy Daniels, in October 2018.
Photo: AP / Markus Schreiber
This is not the case for the trial of the Stormy Daniels affair, which took place before the courts of the State of New York.
After six weeks of debate, a jury of 12 citizens found Donald Trump guilty of 34 accounting falsification offenses to hide from voters the payment of US$130,000 to the porn star, in order to avoid a scandal sexual at the very end of his 2016 presidential campaign, ultimately winning against Hillary Clinton.
The sentence, which can range from a fine to prison, should first have been pronounced on July 11 by the judge, but he agreed to postpone it for the first time to September 18, then to November 26, at the request Donald Trump’s lawyers.
Donald Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, called for all charges to be dropped, saying they had been committed for political purposes and that they were widely disseminated and rejected in the court of public opinion
.
In an editorial, the Kansas City Star on the contrary called on Judge Merchan to do the unthinkable, forcing an elected president to take the oath of office from a prison cell
to send an unequivocal message: the rule of law still applies in America
.
Science fiction in the eyes of former New York prosecutor and law professor at Pace University in New York, Bennett Gershman, because the sentence, if it involves prison, will not be executed on the day it is pronounced, nor will Trump be handcuffed and taken to a cell
.
